


The Art of Forgetting

by PidgeonNScience



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accident, Character Death, F/F, Mild Gore, Original Character Death(s), Other, Tragedy, character backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:28:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24974611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PidgeonNScience/pseuds/PidgeonNScience
Summary: “People in the real world always say, when something terrible happens, that the sadness and loss and aching pain of the heart will “lessen as time passes,” but it isn’t true. Sorrow and loss are constant, but if we all had to go through our whole lives carrying them the whole time, we wouldn’t be able to stand it. The sadness would paralyze us. So in the end we just pack it into bags and find somewhere to leave it.”― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Relationships: Original Character/ Original Character
Kudos: 1





	The Art of Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> This mess will be done in parts because I refuse to be idiotic enough to submit myself into a full-on writing mode. Also, this is probably shit so bear with me

It’s intriguing how many hold such strong masks and such high walls, how they pretend as if their heart wasn’t crushed to bits from one single action. From one event. From one person. And the loss of them.

―  
It was a normal day for Danielle Andrews and the girl she had found herself slipping deeply in love with, Adelia Mills, a cute date at the diner she and the other loved so much. A lovely date, that of laughter and pure joy between the two girls. It was nice, beautiful even, truly something to remember for ages. Once the date was over Dani offered to drive her soon to be lover home, a true chivalrous woman for the ages. The opening of the door and the guided step to the car, everything seemed like it was in place and perfect.

With each step closer to the driver’s side Dani felt swelling confidence, maybe tonight would be the night that she landed a soft peck to Adelia’s lips goodnight. It wasn’t like the two had yet to kiss, but the intimate softness was something the young woman truly craved, something the two were just beginning to discover together. It was a perfect afternoon after their dinner spent together, the sky clear and the weather just right.

So why? Why was it that not even two miles down the road Dani felt the impact, heard the screech of rubber on asphalt, the ringing that sent her near deaf in the moment and the cry. The cry that would haunt her for ages to come. Why was it that she managed to make it out of the car with what only seemed to be scratches and bruises when her soon to be lover could barely move, that her last breath was pushed out with the faint broken words she tried to speak? Why was it that Dani was not in her place? Why was it that she was the one to escape the car alive? Why her? Why did it have to be Adelia? Why couldn’t she stop the shivering of her hands as the other car sped off? Why.. why.. why.. Why couldn’t she be the one to save the girl she had fallen so quickly for, the person that made her feel whole? It was like a part of her was ripped away and torn to pieces, and the sight, the sounds haunted her in her wake. Danielle’s voice a trembling mess as she made the 911 call, her eyes trained on the clear corpse of her lover. But she refused to believe it, there must have been hope. There must have been a way to keep her alive. Yet the clawing in her stomach with each passing moment without so much as a ragged breath or cry of pain. It tore her apart inside out and with each second it took for emergency services to arrive at the scene she felt herself sink lower to the ground until she was nothing but a sobbing mess next to her totaled car.

After that everything seemed like a blank, Dani faintly remembered the blaring of ambulance sirens, the way the medical team carefully pulled her from the ground to evaluate her. How the adrenaline began to flood from her body and the pain finally hit her, a sharp pain in her side as if a thousand knives were stabbing her at once. She remembered falling to her knees yet again, though this time at the searing pain in her side. The next thing she remembered was waking up in a white room, the beeping of a heart monitor stirring her from what felt like a lifelong sleep. The pain in her side, while now dulled still plagued her as she attempted to sit up. Dani let her eyes wander the blank room, exceptions made for cookie-cutter paintings and dividing curtains that blurred the lights of the hall. Her head was pounding and soon she could focus on the uncomfortable twinge of an IV in her arm. She must've been really fucked up to need whatever the hell was being dripped into her. The incident almost seemed like a dream, and for a moment, just a moment things seemed like they were. It was only when she heard a voice so eerily familiar that she remembered why she was in the hospital in the first place. "Adelia-" The only words that fell past her lips in a hoarse cry. Dani felt herself reaching far too quickly for the button on her bed, her heart rate raising unhealthily fast as she thought about the other. "No.. No! It's a dream.. she's okay." Though she was wrong, and that was made clear with the argument that ended in tears. Made clear with the desperate cries for the hospital staff to tell her anything good, her voice falling weaker and weaker as she felt herself get worked up more and more, her sharp breaths sending a ripple of pain through her body. Soon, she was out once more, tears staining her cheeks and reddening her eyes.

―  
Now here she was, years later, the pain still following her but no longer visible to the people she knew. No, she kept her walls high and her expression joyful. She moved to a new town, a fresh start socially. She never used her full name unless necessary, only one person was once allowed that luxury and that one person was gone. Was it wrong to carry the guilt of the incident with her? Was her flinch at the mere sound of an ambulance running through her streets noticeable? Did her smile seem to fake? Did she hold up a strong enough facade? It seemed so. No one questioned her happiness, no one questioned how she spent her time alone or why once every year she seemed to distance herself heavily from her ‘group of friends’. Most of all no one questioned her, period, just how she wanted. She held sick happiness at the fact that no one knew just what she endured, that she seemed to be the person she once was, who she always wanted to be.


End file.
